Dusty Boyer, along with Bradford Zitsch added a doubles victory last Saturday against Northwestern.

Photo Courtesy Scott Bruhn/Nebraska Communications

Courtesy: NU Athletic Communications

03/12/2013

Lincoln, Neb. - The No. 38 Nebraska mens tennis team (7-4) prepares this week to compete in the Blue Gray Tennis Classic in Montgomery, Ala. Matches will begin on Friday, March 15 and will continue until Sunday, March 17. The Huskers will face Boise State on Friday at 4:00 p.m. The Blue Gray Tennis Classic will be played bracket style. Depending on the outcome of Fridays matches the Huskers could possibly face Troy or Notre Dame on Saturday. The Huskers will be guranteed three matches. Other teams competing in the tournament include: Boise State, Columbia, Cornell, Notre Dame, Texas Tech, Troy, and William and Mary.

Live scoring will be available on the tournament website at http://bluegraytennis.com.

Last Week

The Huskers are looking to regain momentum after a painful loss to No. 18 Northwestern 5-2 in their Big Ten opener last Saturday. This loss broke their winning streak, which stretched to six straight wins.

The Huskers notched the first point of the match, sweeping the Wildcats in doubles. No. 3 doubles took the first win of the day, with the pair of Scott Elsass and Brandon Videtich narrowly defeating the Widcats Spencer Wolf and Fedor Baev 8-5. The match at No. 1 doubles also finished with an 8-5 Nebraska victory as Andre Stenger and Marc Herrmann knocked off Sidarth Balaji and Raleigh Smith in a close match. The No. 2 doubles position came down to a tiebreaker. Dusty Boyer and Bradford Zitsch came out of the tiebreaker victorious, with an 8-7 (5) win over Northwesterns team of Alex Pasareanu and Mihir Kumar.

The Huskers momentum did not carry from doubles to singles. Eric Sock pulled out the lone singles victory for Nebraska. At No. 5 he defeated the Wildcats Alex Pasareanu in a close match 5-7, 6-4, 6-3.

"Disappointing loss today after winning the doubles point", Coach Kerry McDermott. "We didn't take advantage of being up 1-0 after doubles today. Northwestern won 3 out of the 4 three set matches in singles, and played better in crucial situations today. My team needs to get more first sets in singles and keep our competition mentally donw in order to win these type of matches. We just need to learn from this and move forward. The season is still long and every match from here on out will be a dog fight guranteed."

Scouting the Boise State Broncos

Head Coach: Greg Patton

Patton has put together an impressive 711-328 record over 30 years as a collegiate head coach, which currently ranks him fifth nationally for most wins by an active NCAA Division I men's tennis coach. A large part of that success has come during his 15 years at Boise State, where he has posted a 360-135 record while winning nine conference championships in three different conferences.

The Huskers will return to Lincoln for a week of practice before hitting the road once again. This time they travel to Champaign, Ill. to take on No. 15 Illinois. The match will begin at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. Results will be posted to Huskers.com.